Pope Francis says “we Christians, inspired by the Gospel, let us work to sow a love that is stronger than hatred and death” to Religious in Verona - FULL TEXT
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Pope Francis travelled on Saturday to Verona for a one-day pastoral visit, meeting first with the northern Italian city's deacons, priests, and consecrated men and women.
VISIT OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
VISIT OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
IN VERONA MEETING WITH PRIESTS AND CONSECRATED
SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER
Basilica of San Zeno (Verona) - Saturday, May 18, 2024
_________________________________________
Good morning everyone!
I wanted to begin by greeting these women, who are cloistered nuns. Did you see how they were all [makes a gesture that expresses joy] like this? Because in the enclosure you don't lose joy, there is joy. And they are good! They never make small talk, never, they are good. Thank you, sisters!
Dear priests, dear religious men and women, good morning!
Thank you for being here. I thank the Bishop for his welcome and for all the work he carries out together with you. It is nice to find ourselves in this Romanesque Basilica, one of the most beautiful in Italy, which also inspired poets such as Dante and Carducci. And being here together, the bishop, priests, religious men and women, and looking at this splendid hulled ceiling makes us feel like we are inside a large boat, and makes us think of the mystery of the Church, the boat of the Lord sailing in the sea of history to bring the joy of the Gospel to everyone.
This evangelical image reminds us of at least two things on which I would like to focus with you: the first is the call, the call received and always to be welcomed; and the second is the mission, to be carried out with audacity.
First of all, accepting the call received: the first point of our reflection. At the beginning of his ministry in Galilee, Jesus passes along the shore of the lake and rests his gaze on a boat and on two pairs of fishermen brothers, the first casting the nets and the others mending them. He approaches and calls them to follow him (see Mt 4:18-22; Mk 1:16-20). Let us not forget this: at the origin of the Christian life there is the experience of the encounter with the Lord, which does not depend on our merits or our commitment, but on the love with which he comes to seek us, knocking on the door of our heart and inviting us to a relationship with Him. I ask myself and I ask you: have I met the Lord? Do I let myself be met by the Lord?
Even more, at the origin of consecrated life and priestly life, there is not us, our gifts or any special merit, but there is the surprising call of the Lord, his merciful gaze that bent over us and he chose us for this ministry, although we are not better than others, we are sinners like others. This, sisters and brothers, is pure grace, pure grace. I like what Saint Augustine said: look this way and that, look for merit, and you will find nothing, only grace. It is pure grace, pure gratuitousness, an unexpected gift that opens our hearts to amazement before God's condescension. Grace causes this: amazement. “But I never imagined something like this!...”. The amazement when we are open to grace and let the Lord work in us.
Dear brother priests, dear religious sisters and brothers: let us never lose the wonder of the call! Remember the day the Lord called me. Perhaps each of us remembers well what the call was like, or at least the time of the call: remembering it, this brings us joy; even cry with joy at the moment of the call. "You come!" - "Who? That other one?” – “No, you!” – “Yes, no… that other one?” – “No, you, you!” – “But, Lord, that other one is better than me…” – “You! Wretched, sinner, as you are, but you!”. Let's not forget the time of the call. This amazement, what a beautiful thing! And this is nourished by the memory of the gift received by grace: we must always have this memory within us.
This is the first foundation of our consecration and our ministry: welcoming the call received, welcoming the gift with which God surprised us. If we lose this conscience and this memory, we risk putting ourselves at the center instead of the Lord; without this memory we risk becoming agitated around projects and activities that serve our causes more than that of the Kingdom; we also risk living the apostolate in the logic of promoting ourselves and seeking consensus, trying to make a career, and this is very bad, instead of spending our lives for the Gospel and for a free service to the Church. It is He who chose us (see John 15:16), it is He, He is at the centre. If we remember this, that He chose me, even when we feel the weight of tiredness and some disappointment, we remain serene and confident, certain that He will not leave us empty-handed. Never. He will make us wait, that is true, but he will not leave us empty-handed. Like fishermen, trained in patience, we too, in the midst of the complex challenges of our time, are called to cultivate the internal attitude of waiting. Patience: waiting and patience, as well as the ability to deal with unexpected events, deal with changes, deal with risks connected to our mission; with openness but with an awake heart, and ask the Holy Spirit for that ability to discern the signs of the times: this is not, this is yes, this is not right. And we can do all this because at the origin of our ministry there is the call of the Lord, and He will not leave us alone. We can cast the net and wait with confidence. This saves us, even in the most difficult moments; therefore let us remember the call, welcome it every day, and remain with the Lord. We all know that there are difficult times, there are. Moments of darkness, moments of desolation... In these dark moments, remember the call, the first call and gain strength from there.
When this experience of remembering the first call is well rooted in us, then we can be bold in the mission to be accomplished. And I still think of the Sea of Galilee, this time after the resurrection of Jesus. He, on the shore of that same lake, meets the disciples again and finds them disappointed, embittered by a sense of defeat, because they had gone out fishing "but that night they had taken nothing” (see John 21:3) – and how many times this happens to us, in religious life, in apostolic life – then the Lord shakes them from that resignation, encourages them to try again, to cast the net again; and they "threw it away and were no longer able to lift it because of the large number of fish" (v. 6). In moments of disappointment, don't stop, resist. Resist. Many times we forget this: to none of us, when we began this path, did the Lord say that everything would be beautiful, comforting. No. Life is full of moments of joy, but also of dark moments. Resist. The ability, the courage to move forward and the courage to resist.
Audacity – apostolic audacity – is a gift that this Church knows well. In fact, if there is a characteristic of Veronese priests and religious people, it is precisely that of being enterprising, creative, capable of embodying the prophecy of the Gospel. Thank you, thank you for this. And this evangelical resourcefulness is a seal - let's put it that way - that has marked your history: just think of the imprint left by many priests, religious and lay people in the nineteenth century, who today we can venerate as Saints and Blesseds. Witnesses of the faith who have been able to combine the proclamation of the Word with the generous and compassionate service of the needy, with a "social creativity" which has led to the birth of training schools, hospitals, nursing homes, shelters and places of spirituality. This boldness to be creative for God's people.
Many of these nineteenth-century saints were contemporaries of each other and, immersed in the turbulent history of their time, through the imagination of charity animated by the Holy Spirit, they managed to create a kind of "holy brotherhood", capable of meeting the needs of the most marginalized and the poorest and to take care of their wounds. Don't forget this: the wounds of the Church, the wounds of the poor. Don't forget the Good Samaritan, who stops and goes there to heal the wounds. A faith that translated into the audacity of the mission. We need this today too: the audacity of testimony and proclamation, the joy of an active faith in charity, the resourcefulness of a Church that knows how to grasp the signs of our time and respond to the needs of those who struggle the most. Audacity, courage, the ability to begin, the ability to take risks. I repeat, we must bring the caress of God's mercy to everyone.
And on this, dear brother priests, I will stop on one thing - I address the priests, who are ministers of the Sacrament of Penance. Please forgive everything, forgive everything. And when people come to confess, don't go there and ask "but, how?...", nothing. And if you are not capable of understanding at that moment, go ahead, the Lord has understood. But please, don't torture penitents. A great Cardinal, who was a penitentiary, told me he was quite conservative, but when faced with penance, I heard him say: "When a person comes to me and I feel that he has difficulty saying things, I say: 'I have Got it, go ahead.' I didn't understand, but God understood." This, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Please don't let this be a torture session. Please forgive everything. All. And forgive without causing suffering, forgive by opening your heart to hope. I ask this of you priests. The Church needs forgiveness and you are the instruments to forgive. To everyone. We must bring the caress of God's mercy to everyone, especially to those who thirst for hope, to those who find themselves forced to live on the margins, wounded by life, or by some mistake committed, or by the injustices of society, which always work to the detriment of the most fragile. Understood? Forgive everyone.
You have inherited the audacity of an active faith in charity from your history. And then I would like to say to you with Saint Paul: "Do not be discouraged in doing good" (2 Thess 3:13). Do not give in to discouragement: be bold in your mission, still know how to be a Church today that is close, that approaches the crossroads of the streets, that heals wounds, that bears witness to the mercy of God. It is in this way that the boat of the Lord , in the midst of the storms of the world, can bring to safety many who otherwise risk shipwreck. Storms, as we know, are not lacking in our days, there are many of them, there is no shortage of them. Many of them have their roots in avarice, in greed, in the unbridled search to satisfy one's self, and are nourished in an individualistic, indifferent and violent culture. Storms, for the most part, come from here.
And the words of Saint Zeno are very relevant in this sense, as he states: «It is not an isolated fault – dearest brothers – to allow oneself to be ensnared by the chains of greed. […] But since the whole world has been burned by the fire of this inextinguishable plague, avarice, as it is believed, has ceased to be a fault, because it has left no one to reproach it. Everyone throws themselves headlong into evil gains and no one has been found to impose the bite of justice on it. [...] Therefore it happens that all nations fall moment by moment as a result of mutual wounds" (Discourse 5 [I, 9], On Avarice). The risk is this, for us too: that evil becomes "normal" - "This is normal, this is normal...". No. This is a risk. Evil is not normal, it does not have to be normal. In hell yes, but not here. Evil cannot be normal. And that we get used to bad things: "The whole world does it, so so do I." So we become accomplices! Instead, speaking to the Veronese, San Zeno says: «Your houses are open to all travellers, under you no one, living or dead, was seen naked for long. Now our poor are unaware of what begging for food is" (Discourse 14 [I, 10], On Avarice). May these words be true for you today!
Brothers and sisters, thank you! Thank you for giving your life to the Lord and for your commitment to the apostolate. A few days ago I was reunited with already "retired" priests, from 40 years of priesthood upwards, and I saw those priests who gave their lives to the Lord and have that wisdom of the heart, I told them the same: thank you for the your commitment to the apostolate. Move forward with courage. Better: let's move forward with courage, everyone! We have the grace and joy of being together on the ship of the Church, among wonderful horizons and alarming storms, but without fear, because the Lord is always with us, and it is He who has the rudder, who guides us, who supports us. And I say this not only to priests, but also to you men and women religious. Come on, courage! We have the task of welcoming the call and being bold in the mission. As one of your great saints, Daniele Comboni, said: «Saints and capable. […] One without the other is worth little for those who pursue an apostolic career. The missionary man and woman cannot go to heaven alone. They will go to hell alone. The missionary must go to heaven accompanied by saved souls. Therefore, first: saints, [...] but it is not enough: charity is needed" (Scritti, 6655), both things.
I wish this for you and your communities: a "capable holiness", a living faith that with bold charity sows the Kingdom of God in every situation of daily life. And if Shakespeare's genius was inspired by the beauty of this place to tell us the tormented stories of two lovers, hindered by the hatred of their respective families, we Christians, inspired by the Gospel, commit ourselves to sowing love everywhere: where there is I hate that I put love where there is hate that I am capable of sowing love. A love stronger than hate - today there is so much hate in the world -, sowing a love stronger than hate and stronger than death. Dream of Verona like this, as the city of love, not only in literature, but in life. And may the love of God accompany you and bless you. And please, I ask you to pray for me. But pray for, not against! Thank you!
SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER
Basilica of San Zeno (Verona) - Saturday, May 18, 2024
_________________________________________
Good morning everyone!
I wanted to begin by greeting these women, who are cloistered nuns. Did you see how they were all [makes a gesture that expresses joy] like this? Because in the enclosure you don't lose joy, there is joy. And they are good! They never make small talk, never, they are good. Thank you, sisters!
Dear priests, dear religious men and women, good morning!
Thank you for being here. I thank the Bishop for his welcome and for all the work he carries out together with you. It is nice to find ourselves in this Romanesque Basilica, one of the most beautiful in Italy, which also inspired poets such as Dante and Carducci. And being here together, the bishop, priests, religious men and women, and looking at this splendid hulled ceiling makes us feel like we are inside a large boat, and makes us think of the mystery of the Church, the boat of the Lord sailing in the sea of history to bring the joy of the Gospel to everyone.
This evangelical image reminds us of at least two things on which I would like to focus with you: the first is the call, the call received and always to be welcomed; and the second is the mission, to be carried out with audacity.
First of all, accepting the call received: the first point of our reflection. At the beginning of his ministry in Galilee, Jesus passes along the shore of the lake and rests his gaze on a boat and on two pairs of fishermen brothers, the first casting the nets and the others mending them. He approaches and calls them to follow him (see Mt 4:18-22; Mk 1:16-20). Let us not forget this: at the origin of the Christian life there is the experience of the encounter with the Lord, which does not depend on our merits or our commitment, but on the love with which he comes to seek us, knocking on the door of our heart and inviting us to a relationship with Him. I ask myself and I ask you: have I met the Lord? Do I let myself be met by the Lord?
Even more, at the origin of consecrated life and priestly life, there is not us, our gifts or any special merit, but there is the surprising call of the Lord, his merciful gaze that bent over us and he chose us for this ministry, although we are not better than others, we are sinners like others. This, sisters and brothers, is pure grace, pure grace. I like what Saint Augustine said: look this way and that, look for merit, and you will find nothing, only grace. It is pure grace, pure gratuitousness, an unexpected gift that opens our hearts to amazement before God's condescension. Grace causes this: amazement. “But I never imagined something like this!...”. The amazement when we are open to grace and let the Lord work in us.
Dear brother priests, dear religious sisters and brothers: let us never lose the wonder of the call! Remember the day the Lord called me. Perhaps each of us remembers well what the call was like, or at least the time of the call: remembering it, this brings us joy; even cry with joy at the moment of the call. "You come!" - "Who? That other one?” – “No, you!” – “Yes, no… that other one?” – “No, you, you!” – “But, Lord, that other one is better than me…” – “You! Wretched, sinner, as you are, but you!”. Let's not forget the time of the call. This amazement, what a beautiful thing! And this is nourished by the memory of the gift received by grace: we must always have this memory within us.
This is the first foundation of our consecration and our ministry: welcoming the call received, welcoming the gift with which God surprised us. If we lose this conscience and this memory, we risk putting ourselves at the center instead of the Lord; without this memory we risk becoming agitated around projects and activities that serve our causes more than that of the Kingdom; we also risk living the apostolate in the logic of promoting ourselves and seeking consensus, trying to make a career, and this is very bad, instead of spending our lives for the Gospel and for a free service to the Church. It is He who chose us (see John 15:16), it is He, He is at the centre. If we remember this, that He chose me, even when we feel the weight of tiredness and some disappointment, we remain serene and confident, certain that He will not leave us empty-handed. Never. He will make us wait, that is true, but he will not leave us empty-handed. Like fishermen, trained in patience, we too, in the midst of the complex challenges of our time, are called to cultivate the internal attitude of waiting. Patience: waiting and patience, as well as the ability to deal with unexpected events, deal with changes, deal with risks connected to our mission; with openness but with an awake heart, and ask the Holy Spirit for that ability to discern the signs of the times: this is not, this is yes, this is not right. And we can do all this because at the origin of our ministry there is the call of the Lord, and He will not leave us alone. We can cast the net and wait with confidence. This saves us, even in the most difficult moments; therefore let us remember the call, welcome it every day, and remain with the Lord. We all know that there are difficult times, there are. Moments of darkness, moments of desolation... In these dark moments, remember the call, the first call and gain strength from there.
When this experience of remembering the first call is well rooted in us, then we can be bold in the mission to be accomplished. And I still think of the Sea of Galilee, this time after the resurrection of Jesus. He, on the shore of that same lake, meets the disciples again and finds them disappointed, embittered by a sense of defeat, because they had gone out fishing "but that night they had taken nothing” (see John 21:3) – and how many times this happens to us, in religious life, in apostolic life – then the Lord shakes them from that resignation, encourages them to try again, to cast the net again; and they "threw it away and were no longer able to lift it because of the large number of fish" (v. 6). In moments of disappointment, don't stop, resist. Resist. Many times we forget this: to none of us, when we began this path, did the Lord say that everything would be beautiful, comforting. No. Life is full of moments of joy, but also of dark moments. Resist. The ability, the courage to move forward and the courage to resist.
Audacity – apostolic audacity – is a gift that this Church knows well. In fact, if there is a characteristic of Veronese priests and religious people, it is precisely that of being enterprising, creative, capable of embodying the prophecy of the Gospel. Thank you, thank you for this. And this evangelical resourcefulness is a seal - let's put it that way - that has marked your history: just think of the imprint left by many priests, religious and lay people in the nineteenth century, who today we can venerate as Saints and Blesseds. Witnesses of the faith who have been able to combine the proclamation of the Word with the generous and compassionate service of the needy, with a "social creativity" which has led to the birth of training schools, hospitals, nursing homes, shelters and places of spirituality. This boldness to be creative for God's people.
Many of these nineteenth-century saints were contemporaries of each other and, immersed in the turbulent history of their time, through the imagination of charity animated by the Holy Spirit, they managed to create a kind of "holy brotherhood", capable of meeting the needs of the most marginalized and the poorest and to take care of their wounds. Don't forget this: the wounds of the Church, the wounds of the poor. Don't forget the Good Samaritan, who stops and goes there to heal the wounds. A faith that translated into the audacity of the mission. We need this today too: the audacity of testimony and proclamation, the joy of an active faith in charity, the resourcefulness of a Church that knows how to grasp the signs of our time and respond to the needs of those who struggle the most. Audacity, courage, the ability to begin, the ability to take risks. I repeat, we must bring the caress of God's mercy to everyone.
And on this, dear brother priests, I will stop on one thing - I address the priests, who are ministers of the Sacrament of Penance. Please forgive everything, forgive everything. And when people come to confess, don't go there and ask "but, how?...", nothing. And if you are not capable of understanding at that moment, go ahead, the Lord has understood. But please, don't torture penitents. A great Cardinal, who was a penitentiary, told me he was quite conservative, but when faced with penance, I heard him say: "When a person comes to me and I feel that he has difficulty saying things, I say: 'I have Got it, go ahead.' I didn't understand, but God understood." This, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Please don't let this be a torture session. Please forgive everything. All. And forgive without causing suffering, forgive by opening your heart to hope. I ask this of you priests. The Church needs forgiveness and you are the instruments to forgive. To everyone. We must bring the caress of God's mercy to everyone, especially to those who thirst for hope, to those who find themselves forced to live on the margins, wounded by life, or by some mistake committed, or by the injustices of society, which always work to the detriment of the most fragile. Understood? Forgive everyone.
You have inherited the audacity of an active faith in charity from your history. And then I would like to say to you with Saint Paul: "Do not be discouraged in doing good" (2 Thess 3:13). Do not give in to discouragement: be bold in your mission, still know how to be a Church today that is close, that approaches the crossroads of the streets, that heals wounds, that bears witness to the mercy of God. It is in this way that the boat of the Lord , in the midst of the storms of the world, can bring to safety many who otherwise risk shipwreck. Storms, as we know, are not lacking in our days, there are many of them, there is no shortage of them. Many of them have their roots in avarice, in greed, in the unbridled search to satisfy one's self, and are nourished in an individualistic, indifferent and violent culture. Storms, for the most part, come from here.
And the words of Saint Zeno are very relevant in this sense, as he states: «It is not an isolated fault – dearest brothers – to allow oneself to be ensnared by the chains of greed. […] But since the whole world has been burned by the fire of this inextinguishable plague, avarice, as it is believed, has ceased to be a fault, because it has left no one to reproach it. Everyone throws themselves headlong into evil gains and no one has been found to impose the bite of justice on it. [...] Therefore it happens that all nations fall moment by moment as a result of mutual wounds" (Discourse 5 [I, 9], On Avarice). The risk is this, for us too: that evil becomes "normal" - "This is normal, this is normal...". No. This is a risk. Evil is not normal, it does not have to be normal. In hell yes, but not here. Evil cannot be normal. And that we get used to bad things: "The whole world does it, so so do I." So we become accomplices! Instead, speaking to the Veronese, San Zeno says: «Your houses are open to all travellers, under you no one, living or dead, was seen naked for long. Now our poor are unaware of what begging for food is" (Discourse 14 [I, 10], On Avarice). May these words be true for you today!
Brothers and sisters, thank you! Thank you for giving your life to the Lord and for your commitment to the apostolate. A few days ago I was reunited with already "retired" priests, from 40 years of priesthood upwards, and I saw those priests who gave their lives to the Lord and have that wisdom of the heart, I told them the same: thank you for the your commitment to the apostolate. Move forward with courage. Better: let's move forward with courage, everyone! We have the grace and joy of being together on the ship of the Church, among wonderful horizons and alarming storms, but without fear, because the Lord is always with us, and it is He who has the rudder, who guides us, who supports us. And I say this not only to priests, but also to you men and women religious. Come on, courage! We have the task of welcoming the call and being bold in the mission. As one of your great saints, Daniele Comboni, said: «Saints and capable. […] One without the other is worth little for those who pursue an apostolic career. The missionary man and woman cannot go to heaven alone. They will go to hell alone. The missionary must go to heaven accompanied by saved souls. Therefore, first: saints, [...] but it is not enough: charity is needed" (Scritti, 6655), both things.
I wish this for you and your communities: a "capable holiness", a living faith that with bold charity sows the Kingdom of God in every situation of daily life. And if Shakespeare's genius was inspired by the beauty of this place to tell us the tormented stories of two lovers, hindered by the hatred of their respective families, we Christians, inspired by the Gospel, commit ourselves to sowing love everywhere: where there is I hate that I put love where there is hate that I am capable of sowing love. A love stronger than hate - today there is so much hate in the world -, sowing a love stronger than hate and stronger than death. Dream of Verona like this, as the city of love, not only in literature, but in life. And may the love of God accompany you and bless you. And please, I ask you to pray for me. But pray for, not against! Thank you!
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